Barclay's pay 1% tax.

Just read this article on the Guardian site.

It seems that instead of paying 28% as they should Barclays in 2009 paid 1%. 1 measly %. They did this through basing subsidiaries in tax havens and arguably some of their profits were generated in other countries by their foreign subsidiaries. Come on this is a British company the lion share of profit should be taxable here.

Barclays argue that they paid £2bn in tax in 2009, however most of this was payroll taxes(i.e Ni and income tax on employees pay.). I'm not a banker but even i know that the tax you pay on behalf of your employees does not count as your tax. Apart from the employers NI this is your employees contribution to the nations coffers not yours.

Tax avoidance at its worst. That's up to £2bn in tax we lost from Barclays alone, how many nurses could that have paid? How many libraries could that have kept open? Is it just Barclays? Is it not possible that the structural deficit might be covered in its entirety if we made big business cough up no-more than what they should pay*?

I can't wait to see the Governments reaction if their is any at all.



*By should pay i mean the meaning of it, 28% of profit! Not the wording, 28% of what you decide was the profit for the bit of your business that isn't run by a goat from a shack in the Caymans.